As George Morton has shown above, in just a mere ten month time period the CCIE R&S count dropped by a staggering -1,052, CCIE Storage dropped by -8 and the total worldwide CCIE count dropped by -584.
Himawan Nugroho has also provided us with the following unofficial worldwide CCIE count video:
So exactly how did Dual CCIE George Morton do the math?
Well, according to Morton:
"So what do all the numbers say?
"In the old days Cisco would count the bodies not the number of passed tests. As a dual CCIE I would count as one person in the old way of counting CCIEs, but in the new Cisco math I count twice, R&S and Security.
"So let's stretch the math. Per customer success stories at INE.Com we were able to see the CCIE 28214 was issued on 2/17/11.
"I don't have a number for 4/10/10, but I did get one for 5/4/10, CCIE 26048.
"Simple math (28214-26048)/(9 months)x(10 months) = Average number of CCIEs to pass from April 10, 2010 to February 17, 2011 or 2,406 new CCIEs.
"Now these are people that passed the CCIE, not people that added to their existing CCIE number with multiple passed CCIE Labs. So you can figure that at best:
"Total CCIEs passing the lab from April, 2010 to February, 2011: 2,406
"Net change in CCIE count from April, 2010 to February, 2011: (584)
"Net change in CCIEs dropping recertification in ten months: 2,990 dropped their number or 12.8% (2,990/23,325) quit in the last ten months alone."